Michael Tippett: The Biography (Omnibus)

Original version

BBC Radio 4 Extra

Factual: Life Stories

Music: Classical

BBC Radio 4 Extra - Michael Tippett: The Biography (Omnibus)

The visionary music and life of British composer Michael Tippett, written by Oliver Soden.

The extraordinary music and life of the British composer, as beautiful as it is challenging. Written and read by Oliver Soden.

The music of the British composer Michael Tippett - including the oratorio A Child of Our Time, five operas, and four symphonies - is among the most visionary of the 20th Century.

Yet little has been written about his extraordinary life. 

In this fresh, first complete biography, arts writer and broadcaster Oliver Soden weaves a century-spanning narrative of epic scope and insight.

Soden has been given unprecedented access to unpublished letters and manuscripts, and has recorded interviews with Tippett’s friends and colleagues. He paints a portrait of a powerful intellect and infectious personality - charming, with a consuming interest in other people, stubborn and great fun. 

But he also uncovers the sorrows and secrets that Tippett stowed away beneath his cheerfulness, not least the darker reaches of some tempestuous and often tragic love affairs that sometimes blurred the lines between the professional and the personal.

Tippett’s was a long, exciting life - and woven through it all is his amazing, varied music, as beautiful as it is challenging, and the eclectic supporting cast of his friends, colleagues and lovers. 

His was truly a life of the 20th Century - but one that can also shine a light on the 21st. 

Omnibus of five parts abridged by Elizabeth Burke.

Read by Oliver Soden.

Featuring:  

Derek Jacobi
Nicholas Boulton
Ivor Minchin Berry 

Producer: Pippa Vaughan

A Loftus production for BBC Radio 4, first broadcast in April 2019.

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